Chapter 1 - The Night I Stopped Being His Wife|
“Bianca needs a proper bed tonight. You'll sleep downstairs.”
That was how my husband told me his ex-wife would be sleeping in our bed.
I was still holding the seating chart for his mother's eightieth birthday when he said it.
Dante Morty was forty-five, the man they called the Black Wolf in Chicago. Outside our gates, men with guns obeyed him without argument. Inside our house, I had spent thirteen years learning to anticipate what he wanted before he needed to ask. I told myself that was what being a good wife meant.
His mother, Elena, was turning eighty on Saturday. I had been organizing her celebration for months: forty-seven households, relatives flying in from New York, older guests who needed transportation, children with allergies, a special lemon cake. Dante knew the date. I knew everything else.
That Thursday night, Bianca called him about a burst pipe in her condominium. I asked whether his daughter, Lucy, was all right. Dante said she was, but Bianca needed somewhere to stay. We had six guest bedrooms, so I offered to have Rosa prepare one.
“No,” he said. “She'll use our bedroom. I'll sleep in the study. You can take the downstairs sitting room.”
I thought I'd misheard him. The downstairs sitting room had a sofa. He was asking me to give up the room we shared so his first wife could sleep there instead.
“Dante, why can't she use a guest room?”
“Don't start, Isabella.”
By the time the front doors opened, they'd already made the decision without me. Bianca stepped inside in a camel-colored cashmere coat, carrying a designer overnight bag. She looked immaculate. I reminded myself that a plumbing emergency didn't mean she had to arrive soaking wet.
“I'm so sorry to impose,” she said.
I offered the guest suite again. Dante put his hand against Bianca's back and repeated that she would have our bedroom. When I asked him why, he said, “Because I said so.”
I had heard him use those words with employees. I had never imagined hearing them about my own bed.
“I'm your wife,” I reminded him.
“And Bianca is Lucy's mother. Show some compassion.”
What hurt wasn't that he wanted to help her. I'd helped Lucy and respected Bianca for years. What hurt was how easily he decided I could be moved aside, as though everything I'd done in that house gave me no place of my own.
When I refused, Dante stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Don't challenge me in front of Bianca. You're embarrassing me.”
I looked at the staircase, then back at the man I'd spent thirteen years protecting from embarrassment. I hadn't embarrassed him. I had asked to sleep in my own room.
So I went upstairs and packed. A change of clothes. My glasses and medication. The white pillowcase my grandmother had embroidered with little blue stars before my wedding. Dante stood in the doorway, telling me I was overreacting.
“It's one night,” he said.
“No, Dante. It's the fact that you think you can give away my place in it.”
I drove away in the rain, stopping at a gas station because my hands were shaking too badly to hold the wheel. I was afraid I'd turn around and apologize, the way I always did. This time I kept driving.
After midnight, I sat in an all-night diner. Dante sent one message: “You embarrassed me in front of Bianca.” He hadn't asked where I was or whether I was safe.
I opened my laptop. Elena's entire birthday plan was there, every confirmation and schedule under my name. I wasn't going to ruin her celebration. I confirmed that every arrangement would proceed, then sent the remaining responsibilities to the other person listed as host: Dante. I copied him on everything and gave his number to the family.
At 7:10 the next morning, my phone lit up with a screenshot of Dante's call log. Forty-seven missed calls were circled in red.
May you like
Underneath, he'd written three words:
“What have you done?”
